


The Valley of Vosges

by C0ppelia



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Day 3 - Injury/Protection, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Inter-timeskip, Little town names and characters made up to fill in a lack of official detail, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Mutual Pining, Sylvix Week 2020 (Fire Emblem), kinda? let's call it subconscious mutual pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26602645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C0ppelia/pseuds/C0ppelia
Summary: Sylvain stopped short, a dark pall falling over his eyes.  Felix felt a cold surge up through his own chest.“...if I become Margrave.”The Gautier March would have to hold out against the Empire until then.  Felix knew that with Dimitri dead, the Kingdom wouldn’t.  He gritted his teeth, anger now flooding in.  Why did Sylvain have to remind him of that?“Well, I won’t be around Faerghus long enough to find out.”---With Dimitri's execution, Felix doesn't see any point in staying in Faerghus.  He'll help Sylvain with one assignment from his father before he leaves.  But when Sylvain needs him, he might find a reason to fight.Sylvix Week 2020, Day 3: Injury/Protection
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Kudos: 28
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Per the tag, there's not a lot of canon information on the various towns, geographic sites, or local cultures in the Kingdom territories, so I made up a lot of that. Hope it's not too distracting =p
> 
> I originally wanted to post the whole thing at once, but sadly the final scenes are not yet ready as of Day 3 of Sylvix Week 2020. I still wanted to have something for Day 3, so the second half will be up hopefully by Day 8.

The western walls of Roncevaux came into view as the road crested and leveled. Felix hadn’t believed they’d make it to the town by sundown, even after a full day’s ride, but behind them the sun still hovered over the trees to promise at least another hour of daylight. He felt relieved; he didn’t like long rides. Sylvain, though, didn’t look the least bit weary after the long day, and sang in time with his horse’s hoofbeats.

“ _So my handshake is strong for the Doctor, my smile ever bold…_ ”

Sylvain, for all his lack of interest in practice, rode as though he’d been born in the saddle.

“ _As when he leaves the house each day, it’s his woman’s tits I hold_!”

Felix glowered at him. “Are fuck songs the _only_ ones you know?”

Sylvain chuckled and tilted his head backwards with a satisfied smile. “Hey, my favorite ballad is ‘The Valley of Vosges’, and that’s not bawdy at all.”

The war had cut short their formal graduation from the Officer’s Academy, but the Magrave had still promoted Sylvain to Commander. Colonel Bertrand Aranda, a knight who had served the Gautier March even when Felix’s father was young, hadn’t objected when the Margrave dispatched him and eight other soldiers under the orders of his son.

“I wish I could put together a patronage for bards here.”

“A what?”

“Paying bards just to wander the March, sharing the songs. And writing new ones. It’s hard to get enough to eat as a roaming singer, playing for tips, but they’re the only ones keeping these ballads alive.”

Felix lifted his eyebrows. “Why’s it so important to you?”

“Commander, I think I see them waiting for us ahead.”

Sylvain turned back to Colonel Bertrand and nodded. He brushed some hair, coppery under the deep evening light, away from his eyes and squinted ahead, where four figures stood in the open gate. The town, nestled in its walls, rolled out behind them. He glanced back at Felix.

“Well I don’t want to see the old Gautier-style ballads disappear. Those are all our folk tales. They’re special. You’re a music lover, I’ll bet you wouldn’t want all the Fraldarius songs to just up and vanish.”

He did remember, as a boy, listening to the bards who visited his father’s court.

“So I’m gonna make that a priority whenever…”

Sylvain stopped short, a pall falling over his eyes. Felix felt cold surge up through his own chest.

“... _if_ I become Margrave.”

The Gautier March would have to hold out against the Empire until then. Felix knew that with Dimitri dead, the Kingdom wouldn’t. He gritted his teeth, anger now flooding in. Why did Sylvain have to remind him of that?

“Well, I won’t be around Faerghus long enough to find out.”

He stared straight ahead, relieved when Sylvain didn’t answer.

Reaching the gate, the soldiers slowed their horses. A man in a fine, embroidered jerkin waved both arms at them.

“Master Gautier! Master Gautier, thank you for coming to us so quickly. I’m Jorge Moudin, burgomaster of Roncevaux. I’m the one who wrote to your father, his lordship the Margrave.”

The burgomaster stood barely taller than Felix, and must have weighed twice as much. A thick brown beard covered his broad face, but his eyes sunk into his head, reddish and dry, as if he hadn’t slept for weeks.

Sylvain nodded, dismounting and taking a step forward. “I appreciate you coming to meet us, so we can get to dealing with this beast problem.”

The burgomaster had immediately recognized him, but aside from a green sleeve garter trimmed with silver thread and the sigil of his crest, Sylvain hardly looked different from the other soldiers. His only armor was a breastplate.

Sylvain had told Felix about Roncevaux the night before.

“They’ve had attacks from what I assume are crest beasts every few days, and the town’s too small to have a garrison of soldiers of its own. And I remember the burgomaster was trying to get my father to help him deal with some problems with the miners, maybe around six months ago—”

“The burgomaster did, or your father’s vassal?” Felix had said.

“Nah, Roncevaux isn’t part of a barony. It’s under the direct control of the Gautier March, so they have to go straight to my father with their problems. But the mining thing came up right as the Empire started moving, so we never could deal with it. If he’s got monsters creeping in now, though, I don’t think we can ignore it.”

A young man and woman—Roncevaux militia, Felix assumed, from their shabby bracers and the hunting knives on their belts—watched the soldiers with a nervous awe. But the fourth man stood back, staring over them all in silence, his face gray as stone.

Sylvain gestured at his soldiers.

“I’ve brought some extra help. Colonel Bertrand Aranda and his troops are some of Gautier’s best. And Felix Fraldarius, son and heir of the Duke himself.”

“Oh! Master Fraldarius, we truly _are_ fortunate to have your aid! Even in such a dark hour, after this frightening month, we still have the Goddess’ mercy.”

The silent fourth man, tall and muscular, watched Felix, and his face grew bitter.

The burgomaster continued. “Master Gautier, I think you know the most important details from my letter. But perhaps we can discuss the situation—”

“Tomorrow.”

The fourth man had cut Moudin off. He stood with his arms crossed, staring hard at Sylvain.

The burgomaster licked his lips, darting his eyes to the fourth man, to the soldiers, and back again.

“Forgive me, I’ve forgotten to introduce the Sheriff of Roncevaux himself! And, yes...yes I suppose we can hold off a briefing until tomorrow morning. I’ve already arranged for you all to be quartered at one of our town’s finest inns. We’re a small town, of course, and it may not have all the luxury you’re used to...but you’ll be comfortable, I assure you.”

Sylvain nodded. “Thank you, I’m sure we’ll be just fine. We don’t need much.”

He took his horse by the bridle and led it under the gate. Felix and the other soldiers dismounted and did the same, guiding their horses over the cobblestones. A few people still walked the streets, hurrying to their homes or shuttering their shop windows for the night. On all the faces, Felix saw the same harried, tight mouths.

***

Felix stepped back into the room and closed the door. The innkeeper’s oldest son knew enough magic to heat the washtubs, sparing them all freezing baths.

Sitting on his bed and rubbing a knot on his lower back, Sylvain grinned at him and nodded.

“There, doesn’t it feel better to have all that road filth washed off?”

Felix rolled his eyes instead of answering and stretched out on his own bed across the little room. The sky had darkened to black now, the room lit with a stubby tallow candle. He closed his eyes for a moment, but sensed a tension on the opposite bed. He turned his head. Sylvain stared at the floor, the light flickering in his hair, outlining his long nose and full cheeks. His jaw and eyes were tight.

“Hey, Felix…thanks, y’know, for coming here with me. I’ve been wanting to tell you…”

He faltered, staring at the candle.

“Well? What? Just spit it out.”

Sylvain’s shoulders relaxed just a little. His face softened. “I’ve just wanted to tell you that I’m glad you’re here. When you showed up all of a sudden...We got the message from Fhirdiad that Dimitri’s gone, and then hours later _you_ just showed up right at the gate…”

He stared at the candle. Maybe he couldn’t find the words to finish, or maybe he knew Felix already understood.

Felix sure hadn’t hesitated to arm himself and take the fastest horse he could find minutes after the messenger had come from Fhirdiad with a tear-streaked face. His guts balled up into hot, squeezing knots at the thought of staying at the castle with his father. At how alone he’d feel even around his uncle Alberto.

And he had to see Sylvain, though other people probably would’ve helped. Ingrid and Mercedes would comfort him. Oddball Yuri would come up with some morsel of soothing wisdom whenever you least expected it. Professor Byleth—wherever they were—could say something simple, even obvious, with their mask of a face, but the light twitch of their lips made it clear how they believed it to be true. And Felix would never admit it, but he would’ve put up with even Ferdinand’s or Constance's nonstop grandstanding.

But the moment he'd learned Faerghus lost all hope, he'd felt compelled—desperate—to ride north.

Sylvain drew in a light breath. “It’s good to have you helping out with this, too.”

Felix shrugged. “I might as well. I just came up to tell you I’m leaving Faerghus in a few days, but if your father needs you to deal with this, whatever, I can help before I leave.”

Felix had told him several times now that he wouldn’t stay to fight; he might not stay in Fodlan at all. Sylvain always looked a little dazed, never able to respond.

Felix stared up at the ceiling, letting the tips of his fingers hang over the edge of the bed. They each had one narrow bed, just about a meter apart. Felix supposed he wouldn’t have minded sharing a bed; they’d done it often enough over the years. There were never enough servants to keep fires in all the rooms stoked during the longest and coldest nights of Faerghus winters, so all his friends had doubled and tripled up. Three or four times at the academy, the two of them had shared a bed for different mundane reasons, and neither of them seemed to care.

Would he even prefer to sleep next to Sylvain right now? Something about feeling the heat of Sylvain’s smooth, sinewy legs could feel reassuring.

“You don’t want to stay...y’know, for the Kingdom?”

Why did talking about leaving have to keep causing that tugging pain in his throat? Did it come from Sylvain’s aching, nervous tone? It made no sense, and he was fed up with it.

He snapped through clenched teeth. “We don’t have a king anymore, Sylvain. We serve a king, right? We swear loyalty to a _king_ , right? So what’s the fucking point if we don’t have one?”

Sylvain tipped his head away from the candlelight, his eyes falling into shadow.

“I know, I know. I’m not trying to talk you out of it. What I mean is I’m glad you came to me before, instead of just disappearing without a word.”

Felix felt guilt tinge his face. “You can leave with me, if you want.”

Sylvain sounded as if he was using the higher part of his throat. “I don’t know...I don’t know if I can…”

Even after Sylvain put out the candle, Felix listened to his friend’s steady breathing, almost able to feel his body across the room.

***

The banging on the door woke him up.

“Commander Gautier! Master Fraldarius!”

Felix had thrown off his bedsheets, eyes wide awake, by the time Sylvain yanked the door open. One of the soldiers leaned against the frame as he gasped for breath.

“A monster...a monster is in the city…”

“Over the _wall_?”

He nodded. “We don’t know how...Colonel Bertrand and Heloise sent me to get you. And the lance.”

Sylvain had pulled on his trousers and boots, and Felix fastened his sword belt around his waist. Only moonlight from the window lit the room. They bolted down the hall, the Lance of Ruin in Sylvain’s grip, and out the inn’s front door.

The roar blasted them from the street. Men and women, some carrying children, sprinted out of their front doors or jumped from windows, running from the beast’s howling. Felix saw their eyes pulled open tight, their jaws locked with fear, but he didn’t hear a single person scream in panic.

“ _Commander_!”

The beast crashed around the corner of the street, striking the front of a shop. The six-foot spikes on its back pierced the wooden planks of the building’s façade. The beast raised its head full of holes and opened its mouth for a roar that shook the stones in the street, ooze flying off of fangs longer than Felix’s right arm.

He heard Sylvain speak through gritted teeth.

“Well, it’s not the _biggest_ we’ve ever seen…”

Bertrand kept yelling, sprinting towards them and away from the beast. The mage Heloise and four other Gautier soldiers hustled back, following the Colonel. Sylvain raised a hand at them, motioning behind him. He couldn’t fully steady his voice.

“All of you, stay back. Heloise, keep lighting fires under it if you can.”

He glanced at Felix, who nodded, even though his body felt hollow and his hands were numb.

They charged at the beast. Its tail shattered another window. Felix raised his sword, watching for a broad stretch of flesh on the neck, but the beast swung its head. He leapt down, ducking below the head and weaving under the beast’s front leg. He tried to slash, but didn’t have the force to break the leathery straps of the beast’s skin. Fire burst underneath the creature before sputtering; Heloise spells might weaken the beast’s aura, but it couldn’t do enough.

“Felix! Get ready!”

He pressed his back against the brick building, legs ready to spring. Sylvain held up the Lance of Ruin, glowing angry orange and shivering. He ducked the beast’s jaws and swung the lance over the massive leg. The flesh melted, and the lance shattered whatever a demonic beast had for a bone. It screamed, but Felix had jumped before the body began to loll. He felt his heart pulse.

The familiar feeling rushed in. Time slowed, and every other creature’s movement became sluggish. Felix felt lightning in his arms, legs and back. His weapon was weightless and deft. The beast had no hope of stopping him when he plunged his sword into the flesh and pulled, tearing a gash four feet long before the blade snapped.

His brother had told him about those moments, even before he grew old enough to feel them himself.

_You move faster than the wind, and you’ve got the strength of ten horses. It’s incredible. That’s the crest._

The surge abated as Felix scrambled away, but he wasn’t even out of breath. He waited against the building as the beast tried to lift its intact front leg, and the bulk dropped on the ground, the bloodless wound hanging open.

The street stayed silent for only a moment before he heard the Gautier soldiers cheer, and Bertrand shouted something. He stared at a spot the beast’s body, just behind its leg. He stepped closer. A loose chain hung off a large pewter charm of the crest of Seiros, embedded in the flesh.

The flesh had grown around it.

Felix clenched his eyes shut and spun away, trudging back along the street. A freezing wave of disgust rolled up through his body and spun his head, and he breathed deep through his nose to keep from losing balance. It was much worse than dying outright; it had to be worse than dying slowly in agony. Nothing could be worse than feeling a writhing mass consume your body and warp it into that screaming, hulking monster.

He opened his eyes and walked faster. The beast’s flesh would dissolve in the air in a few moments. He wouldn’t talk about the charm; Sylvain didn’t need to remember where the beasts came from. After the first time they’d watched it happen, at Conand Tower, Sylvain hadn’t left his room for almost a week.

Down the street, Bertrand came closer to Sylvain, who held his hand to his right shoulder. Felix thought he heard Sylvain telling the Colonel not to worry. He glanced down one alley off the street; by the moonlight, he could see that it ran just a few blocks more to the city wall. The wall cleared the tops of all the two-story houses in sight, and somehow the beast had climbed it.

The dizziness had passed, but the chill stayed hard in his chest. Six months since the fall of the monastery, and already the Empire’s reach had penetrated this deep into Faerghus.

“You alright, Felix?”

He nodded. He held up the broken sword. “The bastard snapped my blade.”

His adrenaline from the fight seemed to have faded, and he kept his voice steady. Sylvain grinned, and Colonel Bertrand gestured at the blade stump.

“We have more with us, Master Fraldarius. We should bring the Commander back to the inn, though, to heal that wound.”

Felix turned; Sylvain’s hand only partly covered a wide, bloody slash between his shoulder and collarbone.

“Alright, alright, I’ll go back and get this taken care of,” he said. “Felix, can you and Bertrand clear things up out here?”

About a dozen of the townspeople had crept back from wherever they’d hidden, watching the soldiers. Felix saw their faces, drawn and pallid, as if they didn’t think the danger had passed. He didn’t know how to calm them. How many nights had beasts roused them all from their beds, crashing into the streets?

How many of them had seen a friend’s body consumed and deformed?

Felix looked to Bertrand to take his lead. He saw Sylvain sway.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Sylvain blinked and swallowed, his eyes focused somewhere on the ground. “Just feeling...I’m just feeling a little nauseous all of a sudden.”

He leaned on the Lance. Ramon took him under his arm. “Commander, we can take care of it back at the inn.”

The citizens watching hadn’t moved. What were they waiting for? Reassurance?

Bertrand must have noticed it too. He stepped forward, towards a cluster of people, raising one arm.

“It’s alright, we’ve taken care of this beast. We’re knights of the Margrave, we’ll patrol the streets tonight. You can return to your homes.”

No one backed up. One man, a coat over a loose blouse he must have slept in, opened his mouth.

“He’s been cut by one...you have to kill him now, before he’s consumed.”

Felix stiffened, wheeling the face the man. Bertrand’s eyes bugged.

“ _What_ did you just say? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

But the man didn’t cower. He shook his head, tightening his lips, his voice almost breaking.

“You don’t understand, you haven’t seen it. The beast drew blood...that’s how they multiply. He doesn’t have long, if you don’t kill him before it starts he’ll lose his mind!”

The others watching didn’t try to pull their neighbor back. They all had the same faces of panic and despair.

Sylvain tried to turn to them. His body wobbled, and his legs crumbled. Had Heloise not grabbed him by the shoulders, his head might have hit the cobblestones.

“Sylvain!”

Felix jumped to his side. Sylvain was conscious; he rattled his head and blinked, swallowing again.

“No, it’s starting already!”

A woman had cried out. The soldiers jerked their heads up to see her, her back pressed against a building’s wall, clutching her hands to her mouth.

Before the Gautier soldiers could speak, Felix shook his head at them.

“That doesn’t happen. _I’ve_ taken wounds from beasts, Sylvain has too, we fought dozens of them at the Academy...they can’t turn people into other beasts by drawing blood.”

“Has this ever happened?” Heloise asked, looking at Sylvain.

Felix didn’t know how to answer. The man shouted again. “You have to kill him now! You don’t understand, I’m telling you, it’s more merciful than letting him suffer through that!”

“He’ll attack you, and then he’ll attack the rest of us!”

Another woman had shouted. Bertrand whistled at his soldiers, waving them back up the street.

“Let’s just get the Commander out of here. These people are exhausted and delirious, they’ll just start trouble if we stay.”

Sylvain leaned on Heloise, with Bertrand holding up under his other arm. Always relying on his reflexes and luck, Sylvain took blows in nearly every fight, but Felix couldn’t remember ever seeing him too weak to walk.

They moved back to the inn. Felix watched more townspeople skittering along the edges of the street, watching them from a distance. Sylvain leaned on the wall of the inn, spitting and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

Bertrand helped him down the inn’s hallways, back to their room, easing Sylvain onto the bed. Heloise lit the candle again, and with his good arm Sylvain began unbuckling his breastplate. In the light, his skin was ashen and glistening. Hair stuck to his forehead.

Felix stayed on his own bed, silent, as the other soldiers crowded into the room. Bertrand signaled to Heloise. She sat next to Sylvain, uncorking a vial of pigment, and drawing a shape on the bloodied skin around the gash. He had to give Sylvain the littlest bit of credit; Felix had never seen him try to hit on any of the women under his command.

“Commander, are you feeling better?”

Sylvain sighed, his head starting to hang. “I feel better off my feet, for sure…” He trailed off, slowly bringing his hand up to his wound, and pressing the skin below it. “It...doesn’t hurt. I can’t feel it.”

Bertrand stepped closer. “It’s numb?”

“I can’t feel it at all. It stung pretty good a few minutes ago but...my whole shoulder is completely numb.”

Bertrand, baffled, turned to Heloise. She raised her own head, still working on the shoulder, with wide eyes and a tight voice.

“It’s not working, Colonel!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The wound isn’t healing at all. My spell isn’t doing anything. I...I don’t know what to do!”

Muffled shouts came from the streets outside. Bertrand growled as he looked toward the window.

“What in the Goddess’ name are they hollering about…”

Heloise took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Commander, let me just try again.”

“Take your time. I can handle a stomachache for a few more minutes.” Sylvain lifted his head again. “Bertrand, our innkeeper is probably awake. He might know what’s got everyone so worked up.”

Bertrand nodded. “I’ll bring him here immediately.”

Felix watched him, waiting for Sylvain to shake it off. Maybe his system felt the shock of the blow, or of blood loss. Maybe the beast’s claws had been coated with a toxin, but nothing he couldn’t pull himself through. He would raise one glinting gold eye and wink back at Felix. But Sylvain’s eyes stayed hazy and unfocused, and Felix gripped the bedsheet until he could feel his knuckled whitening.

He’d thought Sylvain was too smart to die for nothing.

“He’s here, Commander.”

Bertrand reappeared in the doorway. The innkeeper crept behind him, his torso stiff, moving as if he had to keep an inch ahead of a dagger point.

The innkeeper saw Sylvain on the bed. He froze on the threshold, refusing to enter the room.

Sylvain turned to him. “Did you...say your name was Oswaldo?”

“Y-yes, it is, my lord...”

Bertrand snapped at the innkeeper.

“Explain that wild nonsense from everyone out there. What’s given them the idea to threaten the son of the Margrave?”

“It’s...forgive me, but when a beast draws the blood of a human, that human is cursed to become a beast.”

“ _Cursed_? Goddess’ blood, Burgomaster Moudin didn’t think that was worth mentioning to us? That—”

“Bertrand...”

The Colonel silenced himself when his commander spoke. Sylvain took another breath. “When did the beasts start appearing?”

The burgomaster’s letter had described beast attacks from a month before. If he had to ask, Sylvain and his father must not have ever believed it.

“Around five months ago.”

“After the fall of Garreg Mach?”

A realization spread over the innkeeper’s face. “Oh...yes, you’re right. The first attack was about two weeks, I think, after the news came.”

“It’s been that long?”

Oswaldo nodded slowly. Bertrand turned to Sylvain. “Commander...then Moudin lied in his letter _and_ to your face?”

Sylvain set his jaw and closed his eyes for a moment. “Did you start seeing Adrestian soldiers right then too?”

“Adrestian soldiers? I’m sorry, my lord, I haven’t heard of anyone seeing soldiers. I’d say all of you are the only professional soldiers we’ve seen in...well, over a year, at least.”

“Not at all? The beasts don’t wander around on their own. They’re controlled by the Empire,” Bertrand said.

“Not necessarily,” Sylvain said. “They’ve fought along with Imperial troops, but the...the mages or whatever they are who control them, they never wear Adrestian arms. Felix and I have seen them before, and the Empire might be working with them, but I don’t think they’re Adrestians.”

The innkeeper nodded again. “I’ve only heard of some vagabond strangers living in the hills around the silver mine.”

“What kind of strangers?”

“I don’t know much about them. I don’t know if anyone else does either. Antoinette Valderas—forgive me, she’s the candle maker next door—she told me she saw a stranger in heavy black robes over there months ago. I’ve heard other stories too.”

“Has anyone spoken to them?”

“I don’t think so. Antoinette said he ran when they tried to call out to him. I stay away from the mine, to be honest...it’s where the first beasts appeared.”

Somewhere, Felix had already heard of Roncevaux’s silver mine.

“There was some trouble here with the mine six months ago.”

Everyone in the room jerked their heads to Felix. They might’ve forgotten he was there, sitting on his bed with fists still clenched to keep from screaming at them all. But his anger broke, for a moment, when he remembered the letter Sylvain had described.

The innkeeper turned to him, bowing his head a few inches. “There was, but that was before the beasts appeared.”

Sylvain still looked interested. “What happened?”

“Well, I’ll just say what I’ve heard, my lord, I’m not a miner and I don’t know. But they say the mine isn’t safe, and hasn’t ever been...they only discovered the vein of silver about two years ago, and there have been a few deaths, that much is true. The miners all agreed to stop work, together, until the families—I’m sorry, the Vauchon and Lazaro families, they own the mine and much of the land here in town—until they agreed to do some kind of repairs in the tunnels. I’m afraid I didn’t understand what those were, but I heard they found it too expensive, and the militia tried to force the miners back to work.”

“And then... _ngh_...then the beasts appeared later?”

“Some time after, but—oh!”

Sylvain slumped face first onto the bed.

“Commander!”

Bertrand and Felix rushed to the foot of the bed. Heloise rolled Sylvain to his back, pressing her hand into his chest again.

“He’s breathing...I—I don’t know if I can revive him, though.”

“We _have_ to get him a real doctor.”

Bertrand didn’t scold Felix for snapping. He turned to the innkeeper. “Where can we find someone?”

“Well...the priest of Seiros lives in the rectory behind the church three blocks down, he’s tended to the injured before, but I...I don’t know how much he’ll be able to do.”

“We’re bringing him here. Ramon, come with me—”

Felix stood, hand on his hilt, not waiting for Bertrand’s permission.

Ramon, another mage, stepped forward. “Yes, Colonel...but what about the people outside? They still think the Commander is a threat.”

“Dammit...the last thing we need is to start slaughtering civilians. This damn war is making everyone crazy. You, Oswaldo. There must be another way out of this place besides the front doors.”

“There—there is, sir. I’ll show you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain stopped short, a dark pall falling over his eyes. Felix felt a cold surge up through his own chest.
> 
> “...if I become Margrave.”
> 
> The Gautier March would have to hold out against the Empire until then. Felix knew that with Dimitri dead, the Kingdom wouldn’t. He gritted his teeth, anger now flooding in. Why did Sylvain have to remind him of that?
> 
> “Well, I won’t be around Faerghus long enough to find out.”
> 
> \---  
> With Dimitri's execution, Felix doesn't see any point in staying in Faerghus. He'll help Sylvain with one assignment from his father before he leaves. But when Sylvain needs him, he might find a reason to fight.
> 
> Sylvix Week 2020, Day 3: Injury/Protection, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26602645/chapters/64861783

Bertrand, Ramon, and Felix slipped onto the black, silent streets. They jogged over the cobblestones, following the flame Ramon held out in his hand. They could hear voices from the small crowd by the inn, but no one saw them.

A fist had clenched Felix’s throat and refused to let go. The back of his neck seared. Again and again he watched himself, in his mind, slapping Sylvain across his face.

Why did he keep fighting for a dead king? How could he let Felix watch while his legs and skin and eyes rotted? Why would he throw away his life, his body, his heart for nothing?

The hell with Sylvain’s feelings. He never should have gone to see him before he left Faerghus.

Wood crashed into Felix’s shoulder. He slammed onto the street.

“ _Ambush!_ ”

He jerked his head up from the ground, against the exploding pain in his upper arm, to see the face lit up by a wheel of Ramon’s flames.

Bertrand shouted again.

“Sheriff, damn you, stop! That’s an order, by the Margrave! We’re not cursed—”

The sheriff’s face was warped with contempt. Four Roncevaux militiamen hovered behind him with short swords ready. The sheriff swung his axe at Bertrand.

“In the name of the Margrave, you damned lunatic, _stand down_!”

“Fuck you!”

Spittle from the sheriff’s teeth flecked Felix in the eye. The heat building in his shoulders and back burst. With his heart shooting lightning to every muscle in his body, a roar tearing out of his throat, he lunged at the sheriff. His sword shattered the axe handle and the sheriff’s hand before he could move, and a jerk upward with his wrist smashed his pommel into the sheriff’s jaw.

They went down together, Felix on top of him, his arm squashing the sheriff’s throat as blood pooled over his face, the street, and Felix’s sleeve.

“You motherfucker...what are you doing? What the fuck are you attacking us for?”

The sheriff, gargling blood, glared at him.

Felix pushed harder. “I’ll slit your damn throat if you don’t talk!”

The sheriff’s arm sprung into Felix’s abdomen. His lungs locked, but his arm stayed true. One more fast pull, and the blade ripped through flesh.

Felix rose as the sheriff went limp below him, not looking at him again.

The militiamen had fled, before Ramon’s flames could scorch them. Felix couldn’t blame them; militia were barely better than civilians, with their cuirasses of ratty leather and no real training. Even in so little light, Felix could see the poor quality of the iron used for their swords. The sheriff hadn’t been a match for him, either.

Bertrand leaned on his axe and removed his sallet, running a head over his thinning hair, his voice heavy. “Goddess. There really is something evil in this town...”

Felix kept his sword in his hand and started to march again. “We have to find that priest.”

***

The priest of Seiros stepped to Sylvain’s bed. He had not objected when Colonel Bertrand had knocked on the rectory door to tell him the son of Margrave Gautier needed his skills—even though his curates at the church looked terrified—and said little as they rushed back up the street to the inn.

Sylvain lay on his back, skin coated in sweat, his eyelids opening a few milimeters as the priest bent over the bed.

“Well, Brother Alonso? You seen this before?” Bertrand said.

The priest laid a hand gently on Sylvain’s chest.

“Yes, but usually in those who have lost much more blood.” He sighed softly and rubbed his own forehead. “I’m sorry, my lord. I can prepare something for a boost of strength, but whether it will stop what’s happening...I really don’t know.”

The priest knelt by the bedside table, balancing his rucksack on one knee. He placed a ceramic cup and three small vials on the table, and began opening each one. He tipped several drops into the cup before taking the next.

“So then, do you believe the beasts can turn people into other beasts?”

The priest turned his head to Bertrand. He had the same drawn, waxen face as everyone else in Roncevaux, his eyes alert, twitchy, and reddened from weeks of exhaustion. But like all the others, he kept up his work.

“So few people survive an attack at all...most of my patients died of their injuries in hours.”

“...and what about the ones who live?”

The priest watched the cup as he swirled it at eye level.

“They disappeared later. I’ve been able to put this tonic together, I know it can help in the short term. I’m afraid I don’t know if does anything more.”

He inched closer to the bed, and motioned to Heloise.

“Could you hold his shoulders for me?”

Sylvain let her prop him up at just enough of an incline, supporting his head and back. The priest raised the cup slowly to his lips, and Sylvain swallowed. An urge to leap across the room and hold Sylvain’s hands hit Felix. He stiffened, refusing to move his legs, and flushed in the dark.

Sylvain drew in a long breath, raising an arm across his head. After a moment, he shifted to his side, pushing himself upright and leaning on both arms.

His eyes met Felix’s across the room, before he looked anywhere else, as if he had to check for him first.

“How do you feel, Commander?”

He made a face and held his stomach. “That really burns on the way down.”

The priest bowed his head. “My apologies. I’m afraid it’s made with very strong substances.”

“I do feel a little more alert, thank you.”

Bertrand came to the foot of the bed. “Commander, I’m afraid the situation is more dire than we thought. On our way to get Brother Alonso’s help, the sheriff ambushed us.”

Sylvain blinked, his eyes foggy. “You...the sheriff of Roncevaux? Why?”

“We don’t know. We tried to force him to speak, but he wanted to die instead.”

Bertrand glanced back at Felix, acknowledging him.

“You’re sure he knew it was you?” Sylvain asked.

“He tried to decapitate Master Fraldarius! He was no match, sure, but the bastard was trying to kill. His men were ready, too, but they’re cowards at heart. They ran like rats the moment the sheriff was dead.”

Bertrand breathed and composed himself. Sylvain looked straight into Felix’s eyes again. “Are you okay?”

His chest tightened at the urgency and fear in Sylvain’s voice. The town’s lawmen were murderers and a monstrous poison seeped through his body. How could he still be so worried for Felix?

“I’m fine. We need to know why the sheriff was so desperate he’d kill Gautier March soldiers, because he _knew_ we weren’t...weren’t cursed.”

Sylvain nodded, swallowing thickly and glancing at the blood still on Felix’s sleeves. “He gave us dirty looks the minute he saw us. He never wanted us here.”

Heloise bit her lip. “But why? Why wouldn’t he want help to protect his town?”

“He could be a traitor,” Bertrand growled. “He was probably working for the Empire, he’s protecting those enemy mages creating the beasts.”

Sylvain paused, showing no surprise at the accusation. Felix knew he had to suspect the same thing.

“Brother Alonso, do you know anything about those mysterious mages running around the hills?”

The priest placed his vials in his rucksack and stood up straight. “I was one of the first to see them.”

“What?”

“It was the day Jacques went missing. I went with about ten or twelve other people from the neighborhood to look around the mine. We saw someone further up the hillside, moving through the trees, but when we called out, he just ran away. I think a couple of people tried to follow, but he’d completely disappeared.”

“What did he look like?” Bertrand asked. Brother Alonso paused.

“I remember he wore a black robe with no markings, and a hood, and his face was completely covered. At least as far as we could tell. In fact, I suppose I can’t even be sure it was a man. It may have been a woman. But the first beast attack came the day after we saw that...that person in the hills.”

Sylvain lifted his head. “Sorry, who was Jacques?”

“He was a miner, a young man around twenty-nine. He was a very good man, the Goddess rest his soul, very honest and reliable. I can’t think of anyone who disliked him...maybe not the Vauchons or Lazaros, perhaps…”

“Those are the families that own the silver mine?”

“That’s right, my lord. Jacques was...well, he never had a formal title, but the other miners followed his lead.”

“And he went missing?”

“He was the first to disappear.”

The room stayed silent and heavy.

“Burgomaster Moudin never mentioned that.” Sylvain swung his legs off the bed, pushing himself to his feet. “We need to see him. Right now.”

“What?” The colonel’s eyes bugged out of his bald head. “Commander, you can’t mean you want to put yourself right back into danger in the shape you’re in!”

“Why not? Moudin probably already knows his sheriff is dead. We can’t trust him and shouldn’t give him any more time to react.” He smiled with half of his mouth. “Besides, as your commanding officer, I order it.”

Bertrand flushed, but didn’t object. “At least ride on horseback. It’ll be easier to avoid any people still in the streets.”

Sylvain nodded, took a step, and pitched forward.

Brother Alonso and every soldier in the room lunged to catch him, but Felix moved fastest. Sylvain clung to his shoulder and sleeve.

“I’m alright, I’m alright...just got a head rush…”

He straightened his legs, with Felix still gripping his arms, and the priest spoke gently.

“Please remember, I don’t think the tonic I gave you will last more than a few hours. I haven’t stopped whatever may be happening to you.”

“Right, right...okay. I might need a little help on horseback, then.”

***  
  
The townspeople had returned to their homes, as far as Felix could tell. The Gautier soldiers saw no one in the streets as they rode, and over his horse’s hoofbeats on cobblestones, Felix only heard Sylvain’s breathing.

But for a moment, he thought he felt his voice.

“Are you singing back there?”

Sylvain chuckled very quietly behind him. With so little room in the saddle, his body pressed up against Felix.

“Yeah. Just another ballad.”

“You’re singing more dirty songs _now_?”

“No, no, this isn’t bawdy at all. It’s ‘The Valley of Vosges’.”

“The one you said was your favorite? I’ve never even heard of it.”

“It’s an old one, but I’ve just been...I don’t know, I appreciate it a lot more now.”

None of the other soldiers seemed to hear them speaking.

“Well, how does it go?”

“I might puke on you if I try to sing.”

“You dumbass, I didn’t mean literally sing it. I mean what’s the story? Why do you like it so much?”

“It’s a folk tale from Vosges...you know where that is?”

“No.”

“It’s sort of a low-lying area on the northern end of the Arcos mountain range. It’s warm in the spring and summer, and all the melted snow makes it all just this brilliant green. The river from the mountainside is perfectly clear, the town is right on a giant lake. The best wheat, mead, and milk comes from there. It’s an incredible place. The ballad says that hundreds of years ago an army that commanded demons crossed the sea and stormed into Gautier March.”

Felix stiffened.

“That doesn’t sound like the Sreng.”

“Yeah, the legend isn’t really clear who it’s supposed to be. But this invading army just runs right through. No one can put up a fight against the demons, they move further and further into the March. There’s a mountain pass they’re coming to, and through the pass is this beautiful, peaceful valley. The Valley of Vosges.”

He might’ve expected Felix to interrupt again, but Felix waited.

“If the army with the demons gets through the pass, there’s no other area to give Gautier a geographic advantage, and they’ll sweep over the rest of the March. But there just happens to be a guy with a very special crest living in the valley.”

“The Gautier crest?”

“No, a made-up one. The problem is, this guy isn’t a soldier, he’s not a priest of Seiros, he’s a regular dude who loves brewing moonshine, playing ball games with his friends, and chasing women—”

“I _knew_ there had to be a reason you liked it.”

“Hey, I’m not finished...”

“Commander, it looks like the militia is ready.”

The soldiers slowed; ahead of them lay the home of the burgomaster, with four Roncevaux militiamen waiting at the front door. Sylvain took a sharp breath before drawing a leg across the horse and hopping to the ground without swaying. He stepped forward, the Lance of Ruin in hand.

“We need to talk with Burgomaster Moudin. Please stand aside, go on home, and you won’t have any trouble.”

If he was still in pain, it didn’t carry through his voice. For a moment, the men and women with shabby leather armor and chipped axes seemed almost in awe of the Margrave’s soldiers. But one man, instead, spat and bared his teeth.

“Get out of Roncevaux!”

Sylvain didn’t stand aside when the he lunged. He caught the axe with his lance and slammed his knee into the militiaman’s chest. Before the man could cry out in pain, Sylvain had clamped down on his arm. He swept his own leg across the man’s feet. The militiaman dropped, pushed faster by Sylvain’s elbow, and everyone in the street heard his shoulder snap.

Felix hopped to the ground and marched after Sylvain, along with the other soldiers, ignoring the militiaman’s wails. The other three had run off, leaving only the sound of old leather chafing worn shirts.

Bertrand smashed the door’s lock with the butt of his axe. They stormed into the entrance hall, now dark and empty. Sylvain gestured to the doors on two walls.

“Start looking for Moudin. If any other militia come after you, try not to kill them.”

Felix didn’t wait any longer. He charged through the door to his right and up a flight of stairs, grinding his teeth. Sylvain was refusing to believe an official would ever throw his citizens to the enemy. Felix wasn’t that naive.

He forced open a door at the top of the stairs. Another militiaman rushed down the hallway towards him. Felix raised his blade.

“ _Out of my way!_ ”

Chubby arms in the sleeves of a dressing gown waved behind the militiaman, cowering in front of Felix.

“No, Master Fraldarius! I’ll come peacefully, please, no more bloodshed...”

The burgomaster’s pink, exhausted eyes bugged as Felix reached past the stunned militiaman and seized the collar of the unbuttoned doublet he wore over the gown. He yanked Moudin through the closest open door and tossed him into the center of the room.

“Sylvain! _Sylvain_! I found him!”

Moudin staggered to far wall, but did not move again. He slumped, all of the bombast from the day before sucked out of his body and face. He looked near tears.

Felix wished he’d try to fight back, or at least make a move to escape, and give him a reason to use the sword he still gripped in his right hand.

“Felix!”

Sylvain, Bertrand, and Ramon marched in. Sylvain slowed, staring at the burgomaster, who seemed unable to lift his head. “Well, I guess you know why we’re here.”

Sylvain closed his eyes for a moment, almost swaying. He reached for a chair next to the wall, lowering himself carefully, while Ramon lit a candle on the table next to him.

“Tell me everything you know about the beasts.”

Moudin stepped to face the son of his Margrave and drew himself up. His face now looked solemn. “My lord, you may know that the families who own the Roncevaux silver mine asked me for help when their men and women refused to work.”

“I’m aware.”

“We tried, but the militia couldn’t force them. Then some of the...well, the most vocal of the miners disappeared, and we were compelled to investigate. It was then that the militia apprehended a group of three...they said they were scholars. They reasoned with us, and said that since their—this is what they called it, they said since their experimental spells had solved our worker problem, we ought to show clemency. They swore to leave the area.”

Felix’s neck seared. His voice shook. “You let them _go_?”

Moudin looked down, bracing his upper body, as if expecting a blow.

“I swear to you, my lord Gautier, if I’d known they would keep doing...what they were doing, I never, never would have agreed to this. We tried to stop them, when the beasts kept appearing, we tried to stop them! They overpowered us when we tried to reach them again.”

“So you really thought some beasts would behave just like you wanted,” Sylvain said, still calm. “Why did you wait so long to get us to bail you out?”

“We...we hoped to settle the matter ourselves. We tried, I swear to you. But I came to my senses.” He paused, catching his breath, still looking away from Sylvain’s gaze. “Too many people have died from the start, and I will accept responsibility so this can end.”

“Then why did your sheriff come after us?”

Moudin clenched his own jaw. “That is...another reason why I did not ask for your help sooner. My sheriff objected to me calling on your father the Margrave for help until the end. We argued about this many, many times, and I would have alerted Margrave Gautier much sooner if not for him. He believed the scholars were still targeting some...some undesirable Roncevaux citizens, and he was happy to be rid of them. Many in the militia agreed with him, although I don’t think they ever knew how the beasts came here.”

The other Gautier soldiers had come to the doorway, listening to Moudin. Sylvain close his eyes and held his breath again, bearing a pain. Felix couldn’t guess if it came from his own body, or the burgomaster.

He looked up again. “As my father the Margrave’s proxy, you’re no longer burgomaster of Roncevaux. We’ll install an interim governor until we can bring in someone permanently.”

Moudin nodded, soberly, but did not seem surprised.

“My father will have to decide what to do with you.”

“My lord, please...if you could, well, if you could intercede on my behalf to your father...if you could remind him that I was forthcoming with you…”

Sylvain stared at him. His mouth hardened. His lips parted enough to let his voice hiss through a thin line of bared teeth.

“You allowed your own citizens to suffer a completely inhuman death—”

His voice shut up, banging around the room.

“And you have the _gall_ to ask me for _mercy_?”

The burgomaster shriveled. His shoulders collapsed, eyes filling with despair, as if realization washed over him a second time.

“I...I won’t. I apologize. I’ll accept the Margrave’s judgment.”

He didn’t move again; he didn’t seem to have any reason to. Sylvain stood up and turned, facing his soldiers but refusing to look anyone in the eye.

“I know everyone’s exhausted, but we need to get out to the hills tonight. These mages found a way to make more beasts in a hurry, and we need to put a stop to it now.”

“We’ll follow your orders until we can’t stand, Commander,” Bertrand said. Felix saw the other soldiers nodding.

“Alright. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

***  
  
Gray from the east spread across the sky as they reached the hills, a half-hour’s ride from the Roncevaux’s walls. A fog had started to rise from the wet soil, and it was difficult to see more than thirty meters ahead on the dirt road curving alongside the river, steeper and steeper, up through the trees.

Felix’s eyes ached, but his mind raced. They didn’t know if they faced only the three Adrestians, still cut off from the Imperial army, or if dozens more had crept into the Kingdom. They might have forty beasts stashed in the trees. The other Gautier soldiers rode in silence; even if they were ready to fight for another full day, how much would exhaustion slow them down?

Sylvain’s arms hung loose, touching Felix’s sides and hips, still behind him on the horse. He’d lost weight since the academy. Felix remembered, again, how his arms and chest and back had felt those three or four different nights they’d lain in bed together. A couple of them had been after Sylvain had watched his brother die, when Felix hadn’t been able to calm him. In the afternoon following the second night, Felix had left the room and brought back plates of whitefish and tomatoes from the dining hall to convince Sylvain to eat. He had set the plates on the desk, and Sylvain had moved steadily—deliberately—to wrap his arms around him, and kiss him with his full mouth.

His voice had been heavy. “Thank you, Felix.”

Sylvain hadn’t brought it up since then, and hadn’t acted any differently afterwards. He probably didn’t think much of it at all. But Felix couldn’t help thinking of it, remembering the light smell of salt and wood on Sylvain’s neck and hair, and the tingling on his skin where those arms held him.

How much longer did he have before the poison ate up his arms, his neck, and his face? The priest’s concoction wouldn’t last long, and Sylvain hadn’t said anything since they’d left Roncevaux’s east gate.

“Hey, Sylvain…”

“Mmm?”

He sounded awake, but not energetic.

“How d’you feel?”

He heard a low chuckle.

“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll warn you if I’m gonna throw up again.”

Felix bit down on his lips to stifle something rising up in himself. He couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a sob. He waited until he could control his voice.

“What else happens in that ballad you were singing? That guy in the valley, what did he do?”

“You still wanna know?”

“I want to know how they fought the army with the demons.”

“Where did I leave off...so he’s not a soldier or a priest or a mage, he doesn’t want to have to risk his life for a Margrave he never sees—”

“Commander, up ahead...I don’t think our horses can cross that footbridge.”

The road forked into a thinner trail leading further up the hills, and another to a narrow bridge built low to the water. The timber looked grayed and worn.

“Dammit. We should’ve crossed at the stone bridge earlier...alright. We’ll try walking from here.”

The soldiers began to dismount. Felix jumped off, and watched Sylvain land steady on his feet. He began wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

He screamed.

“ _You! Stop!_ ”

Sylvain bolted for the bridge. Felix jerked his head to see the figure in black across the river, sprinting into the trees.

“Sylvain!”

Felix gripped his sword hilt as he ran. The soldier’s boots thumped over the bridge behind them. The figure across the river, the body covered with a black robe, staggered when he twisted his head backwards. Sylvain slowed and turned his own head towards the rising slope behind them all.

“ _Bertrand_!”

The explosion rocked the bridge and jerked Felix’s feet from under him. He dropped to his elbows, and the wood planks under his legs drifted. He reached out to the far planks.

Sylvain’s arm seized him under the shoulder and dragged him.

“Quick! Run!”

Felix stumbled to his feet and kept running. He glanced behind; the ball of flame that struck the bridge had ripped away a two-meter length of planks. The river’s rush tore away more burning trestles. The other Gautier soldiers scrambled away from the falling planks on the other side. The flame’s heat had blasted through all the fog, and they could all see two more figures in black at the peak of the other hill.

Sylvain, his face and hair coated in sweat, jabbed his lance up at them and shouted with all his lung power.

“Don’t let them escape!”

The soldiers were already sprinting after the pair on the other side of the river. Sylvain and Felix charged off the bridge and dodged into the trees, following the figure higher. Again and again, Felix feared they’d lose sight of him. They drew closer to the crest of the hill ahead; he wished pointlessly that he’d brought a bow. From the summit, the figure stopped, raising his arm, with a direct line to him.

Felix froze. The figure gathered a violent orange light into his fist. He was too far away to stop it.

A column of fire swallowed the figure.

He twisted his head to see Sylvain, his own arm still outstretched, gasping for breath as he ran up the hill. The column flickered away, and Felix moved again, towards the smouldering body at the top. He didn’t know Sylvain could summon a fire spell with that kind of accuracy.

They reached the crest of the hill, a long and rocky ridge clear of trees. Felix paused to catch his breath and soothe the pain in his throat. The mage’s charred body lay sprawled on the mossy ground, flames still licking the edges of the robe.

Felix pointed with his sword.

“Guess we can’t tell if he was Imperial or not…”

He turned back. Sylvain’s body shuddered as he breathed. He shuffled with all his weight on the Lance of Ruin. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he pitched sideways to the ground.

“ _No_!”

He dropped to his knees at Sylvain’s side. He rattled Sylvain’s shoulders, grabbing the side of his head. His body was heavy. Felix wrapped his fingers around Sylvain’s mouth and nose, feeling the slightest warm breath.

Another roar ripped through the trees below the ridge, and Felix felt ice pour down his back. He turned again to see a massive head rising out of the branches, the skin like strips of rotten leather.

“No! Fucking no! Sylvain!”

The beast tore out of the trees, limbs flailing and crunching tree trunks. Its tongue lolled out between the crooked fangs.

Felix jumped to his feet, sucking in breath. The muscles in his face and arms were locking. He wasn’t good enough to throw a thunderbolt to weaken the beast, and he didn’t have Sylvain’s lance.

But he had to stay with Sylvain.

He charged, screaming. He swung his blade with both arms, hacking into the beast’s foreleg. He kept screaming, like a flood blasting out of his lungs. He saw Dimitri as he cut, and the agony in his classmate’s eyes when they watched the waves of marching Adrestian soldiers from the monastery ramparts. He saw the huddled, skittering bodies of the terrorized people of Roncevaux and Fraldarius, and his scream drowned out the beast’s roars.

If the beast was trying to fight back, Felix couldn’t tell. His heart slammed like a battering ram, and he’d torn apart the beast’s front legs, chest, and beneath its neck. He leapt aside as the head thudded to the rock, wheezing and snarling, and Felix drove his sword into its blazing red eye.

Felix stayed there, still clenching the hilt, as if pulling the sword out would revive the monster. He kept his eyes closed as he began to hear a wispy cracking. The beast’s flesh was dissolving into ash on the breeze. He stood there until the sword point slipped and dropped. He opened his eyes to stare at the rock when he heard a rustle behind him. He didn’t dare look; the longer he waited, the less he had to see of the black mass consuming Sylvain’s body.

“Felix…”

No, if Sylvain needed him, he wouldn’t leave him alone. He would look him in the eye and hold his hand until he could end his friend’s suffering. He turned.

Sylvain was lifting his head from the ground, and when he called again, his voice was stronger.

“Felix...can you…”

He leapt across the ground and dropped to his knees at Sylvain’s side. “Sylvain!”

His arms seemed to give out, and he rolled sideways. Felix held him by his shoulders to lay his head on Felix’s thighs. His eyes stayed closed. Felix clutched the collar of his shirt.

“Say _something_! Sylvain, please, say something—”

“It’s okay…”

He raised his eyelids, his face calm. His voice was low, but not weak. “I think...whatever was happening, I think I’m through it.”

“Y-you are?”

He smiled, very slightly. “I still might throw up on you. But my head isn’t so foggy anymore.” He lifted his right hand and touched the skin around the deep red gash below his left shoulder. “And _this_ is starting to hurt again.”

Felix’s heart pounded. “So the beasts can’t turn humans into other beasts.”

“No, I think these ones can.”

“What? That whole time you thought you were cursed?”

“Kind of assumed my crest would pull me through. I think that’s what happened.”

Felix’s mouth hung open. “You fucking idiot. Of course _you_ would just trust that you’d get lucky.”

“Well, what else is a crest good for?” He winced, holding his side just beneath the wound, and spoke again before Felix could object. “Are you okay?”

“What...yeah, of course I am.”

“What happened?”

Felix blinked. So Sylvain wanted to keep on ignoring his pain. “Another beast came out of the forest and I killed it.”

“Sorry…”

“What the fuck for?”

“I wasn’t much help.” He rubbed his side. “I wonder if there are any more still creeping around. If Bertrand and the others got those two mages, though, maybe that’ll end the whole mess.”

He looked up at Felix again. “Thanks for saving my life again.”

Felix hadn’t expected to hear so much emotion in his voice. He didn’t respond. Sylvain turned his head, staring off over the ridge.

“It’s beautiful out there.”

Felix looked. In the fight with the beast, he hadn’t realized the clouds had begun to break, and streams of sunlight had dissipated much of the fog. Hills coated in green and red trees unfurled for miles, a thin, pale blue haze still lining the slopes. In the far distance, the hills billowed into the Arcos mountain range, perpetual snow on their peaks. To the south, the Cima river curled through bluffs to mark the border of Fraldarius.

He took in the land in silence. He felt Sylvain breathe to speak and looked down, but Sylvain kept gazing out over the hills and forests.

“D’you still want to hear the end of ‘The Valley of Vosges’?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. This guy is considering just telling the Margrave to screw off, he doesn’t want to fight. But he realizes—it’s this nice middle section of the ballad that describes all the meadows and flowers and birds in Vosges, and the mountain peaks around it, and how happy all the peasants who live there are—that demon army is destroying everything he loves in the valley. So he joins the Margrave’s army at the pass, there’s a few verses of battle, and with this guy’s crest and spells that army is just obliterated.”

“He saves the whole March?”

“Yup. The Margrave wants to make him a baron, make him a general, all the gold in the March, all that. But he refuses. All he wants to do is go back to his life in the valley, drinking moonshine with his friends. So the Margrave lets him, gives him a statue of himself, and it’s still in the Vosges town square to this day.”

Felix waited, but Sylvain didn’t continue. “That’s it?”

“Well, it sounds better in song, but that’s the end.”

“It’s not very...heroic.”

“It’s not a tale of chivalry, it’s just a folk legend. It’s just a guy who’s got something to protect.”

He drew a deep, almost pained breath. Felix watched him. He didn’t look away from the hills.

“I can’t think about the Empire taking Gautier, Felix. I can’t stand it. I can’t walk away and wonder if they’re gonna leave anyone alive, if all our stories and our places are gonna survive.” His voice caught, and he had to pause. “I think about Dimitri every day, but I’m not out fighting because of him. These people don’t have anyone else but me to protect them.”

Felix nodded. His arms and shoulders felt as heavy as the hill they lay on. He stared out far, towards the river bluffs, imagining he could see the waterfalls at Wyvern’s Mouth on the Fraldarius side of the border. A year or so before they’d enrolled at the Officer’s Academy, they’d gone hunting there. He wondered if Sylvain remembered.

On his legs, he felt Sylvain turn his head at last, looking up at him. “Are you really leaving?”

Felix closed his eyes and tried to swallow to ease the tightness in his throat.

“No. I won’t. I’ll help you finish cleaning this place up, then I’ll go back to Fraldarius. And do whatever I have to.”

Sylvain sighed, and Felix looked down. He’d closed his eyes again, with a wide, true smile, as if he’d felt relief for the first time from a years-long pain. He took Felix’s hand from his shoulder and pressed it to his lips.

“It’s gonna be a lot easier to keep going if I’m fighting for you, too.”

Felix squeezed his hand. He gripped so hard he felt his forearm seize up, and feared he’d crushed Sylvain’s fingers. But Sylvain squeezed back.

They stayed there and watched the sunlight slip through the moving clouds. Felix clung to Sylvain’s hand, warm and strong.

“Dammit. I never should’ve come to see you. I should’ve figured you’d talk me out of it.”

Sylvain opening his eyes a little, lips breaking into a grin.

“Maybe that’s why you came. Maybe you _wanted_ me to talk you out of it.”

“Ugh...just shut up.”

He heard a voice echoing below them, somewhere back in the trees they’d come from.

“Is that Bertrand?”

“Sounds like it. They must’ve gone back to cross the stone bridge to get to this side of the river.”

Sylvain rolled off of Felix’s legs and pushed himself up to his haunches. “He might be saying they’ve killed the mages already. Guess they weren’t ready for professional soldiers.”

He pushed himself to his feet slowly. Felix put his arm around Sylvain’s back to support him, but his friend steadied himself on his own. He put his arm around Felix’s shoulders, holding him as they walked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the end. Hope you all had fun!
> 
> You can find me on twitter reposting cool FE art: @_C0ppelia

**Author's Note:**

> Gautier seems to borrow a lot of names from French and Spanish, and the title 'burgomaster' was used more by Germanic areas. *But* it sounds more interesting than 'mayor'. Also, I haven't been able to verify any title one would use for the heir presumptive of a nobleman who is not a prince, so I'm just going with 'Master'. 
> 
> You can find me on twitter reposting cool FE art: @_C0ppelia


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